AN OBJECT-ORIENTED SIMULATION OF ANOREXIA BASED ON BRAIN STRUCTURE INTERACTION

A computer simulation using an object-oriented strategy was developed to model brain mechanisms that underlie eating disorders. The simulati on was based on neuroanatomical and neurochemical evidence from publis hed literature. Testing of the simulation required that the activity l evels of the raphe nuclei of the brain stem be altered and the resulti ng activity levels of associated brain structures be compared with res ults from human and animal data. The results supported the serotonin h ypothesis of anorexia that increasing the activity level of the raphe nuclei would result in dramatic changes in the activity level of the p araventricular nucleus. The findings are discussed with respect to the feasibility of computer simulations to test theories of brain-based d isorders.